Tag: multitasking

First things first: if you can avoid multitasking, definitely do so. Trying to concentrate on more than one thing at a time is a recipe for mistakes, not to mention stress. Plus, most of us can’t really …

Did you spend part of this weekend working? If so, maybe you have a time management problem -- or maybe you have a problem with other people not letting you manage your time. Either way, identifying the major obstacles standing between you and a more productive work week will free you up to spend next weekend resting (or at least, attending to the business of your personal, non-work life).

Who's good at multitasking? No one, according to a spate of recent studies, collected by Tom Bartlett at The Chronicle of Higher Education -- or at least, no one multitasks well enough to make it more efficient than doing one thing at a time. There's also a startling lack of concrete evidence that women multitask better than men.

If you want to start a fight at your next team meeting, just ask the group if they think listening to music helps them work better -- or totally kills their concentration. In no time at all, you'll have people lined up on two sides of the room, snapping their fingers and advancing on one another in a menacing fashion, like Sharks and Jets in button-down shirts.

Everyone knows by now that multitasking isn't actually more productive. You feel busy, but in fact, you're just spinning your wheels -- or worse, making mistakes that you wouldn't have made if you were able to concentrate on one thing at a time.

Out of all of the skills printed on resumes, multitasking is probably the most overused. It is rare that an applicant will admit that he or she is unable to manage more than one task at a time, but unrealistic to believe that the entire job-force has great multitasking skills. Here are a few signs that you are not a great multitasker, along with a few quick tips to help (because, multitasking).

Here's some depressing news for people who are attempting to be functional humans in the 21st century: doing more than one thing at once, otherwise known as the only way anyone ever does anything anymore, is probably keeping us from being truly productive.